The theme of my two Regency novels, Phyllida and the Brotherhood of Philander and Pride/Prejudice, is the m/m/f ménage told as a romance, a love story with two happy endings. At the end of the novels, the hero—a conventionally masculine man—is in loving relationships with his wife and a male partner, and each partner is aware of and accepts the [...]
Filed under Talking About Romance · Tagged with 1600s, age, Ann Herendeen, arranged marriages, economic marriages, egalitarian, England, fashion, Ganymede, gender, GLBT, homophobia, identity, Kit, law, love, marriage, ménage, Mother Clap's Molly House: The Gay Subculture in England 1700-1830, Pakistan, Phyllida and the Brotherhood of Philander, Pride/Prejudice, prostitution, Regency, research, Rictor Norton, sexuality, social heirarchy, Stephanie Coontz
Len Barot began writing romance novels on the side when she was in medical school. For more than 20 years, while working as a surgeon, she somehow found the time to write several lesbian romance novels each year. In 2004 she started Bold Strokes Books, and gave up her medical practice. Headquartered on a farm in upstate New York, Bold [...]
Filed under Interviews · Tagged with astronauts, Bold Strokes Books, childhood, gay romance, Giovanni's Room, GLBT, Len Barot, lesbian romance, Naiad Press, New York, Philadelphia, publishing, Radclyffe, Sarah Aldridge, self-publishing, sheriffs, surgeons, teenagers, The Latecomer, time management, transformation, validation, Westerns
My keeper shelf is a hard one to land on, because I’m something of an anti-hoarder, especially when it comes to books. I love my Kindle because books can pile up in a corner and still be there without taking up any real space, but even on my Kindle shelves, the number of “must read agains” are very, very small. [...]
Filed under Behind the Scenes · Tagged with A Civil Campaign, Adorabelle Dearheart, adventure, American Gods, androgyny, bisexuality, con artists, cynics, Discworld, Drawn Together, e-readers, Emperor Gregor, gay romance, Georgette Heyer, GLBT, Going Postal, Heidi Cullinan, Henry Fielding, humor, Jane Austen, keepers, Lois McMaster Bujold, Lord Vetinari, love-in-peril, Marie Sexton, mistaken identity, misunderstandings, Moist VonLipwig, Neil Gaiman, Ran Yamane, Riptide Publishing, Rory, science fiction, Second Hand, smoking, Terry Pratchett, The History of Tom Jones, Z.A. Maxfield
Call it the “call me” summer. There are likely few corners of the globe that haven’t spent the past several months humming along—if not more—to Canadian pop star Carly Rae Jepsen’s “Call Me Maybe.” The fun, flirty invitation to a dreamy crush has been on the USA Top 40 singles chart since March, holding the #1 spot for nine weeks [...]
Filed under Talking About Romance · Tagged with Ann Powers, Australia, B.J. Daniels, Ben Knechtel, Brazil, Call Me Maybe, Canada, Carly Rae Jepsen, clinch covers, Cookie Monster, cover art, Dana Marton, Daniel Kreps, empowerment, Finland, gay romance, GLBT, Harlequin, humiliation, Intrigue, Justin Bieber, Katy Bieber, Linda Warren, Love at First Sight, music, New Zealand, NPR, Olympics, pop music, screwball heroines, Sesame Street, Skylar's Outlaw, SPIN.com, Stranded with the Prince, Super Romance, U.K., U.S.A., validation, William Gleason
As a long-time romance reader, a romance author, and a publisher, I figured I had a pretty good handle on what constituted a good romance, so when I was asked to be the guest editor of Best Lesbian Romance 2009 (Cleis Press), I expected the task to be straightforward. I’ve just recently turned in the manuscript for Best Lesbian Romance [...]
Filed under Talking About Romance · Tagged with attraction, Best Lesbian Romance, Bold Stroke Books, catharsis, challenges, cheating, Cleis Press, conflict, connection, consummation, declaration, editing, expectations, first love, GLBT, HEA, HFN, lesbian romance, longtime couple, lying, marriage, meeting, paranormal romance, pleasure, Radclyffe, rape, readability, reader acceptance, resolution, reunion, rules, sexuality, social history, subgenres, transformation, Trust, urban fantasy, women's history, YA
People are often taken aback when I tell them I’m writing about Zane as a romance author—including, and maybe particularly, other romance authors. For the uninitiated, Zane is a wildly popular writer of erotica, having carved out space for sexually explicit tales of couplings between black men and black women (and black women and white men, and black women and [...]
Filed under Talking About Romance · Tagged with African American romance, Conseula Francis, definition of genre, empowerment, Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, F/F romance, feminsim, GLBT, interracial romance, Jennifer Crusie, respectability, Romance Writers of America, shaming, Shayne Lee, Zane
Admittedly, there is something comforting about reading mass market romance. I know what I am in for; it’s a quick fix; wham bam, thank you, Mills & Boon. As a romance critic, however, I resist this lulling pull. Instead, I focus on discovering complex ploys and unheard-of depths in what seem, on the surface, run-of-the-mill romances, and I love getting [...]
Filed under Talking About Romance · Tagged with Ashley Ladd, Beautiful Thing, Black Lace, Brokeback Mountain, Carole Veldman-Genz, commodification, David Gandy, Dolce & Gabbana, Ellora's Cave, female gaze, fetishizing, gay romance, GLBT, Laura Baumbach, love conquers all, M/M romance, ManloveRomance Press, men as objects, Other, Pirate's Booty, polyamory, romantica, Sarah J. Robbins, sexuality, Shawn Lane, threesomes, Trust
James Buchanan (a pseudonym) writes erotic male-male romance novels that are mostly read by women. She’s an attorney who loves being in court (and doesn’t want to be stuck behind a desk). She has a husband and two kids. And she’s also involved in the kink community. When we spoke, I asked her about the phenomenon of male-male gay romance [...]
Filed under Interviews · Tagged with gay romance, gender, gender queer, GLBT, HFN, James Buchanan, M/M romance, power dynamics, sexuality, shared experience, time management
